Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Wangming]

It is and everybody in this thread knows it, but it seems like they don't want to acknowledge that not having 9.3 and getting 10.0 out in time is better (and just more important) because they would have to agree with persons like me on that, lol.

That would be a hard pill to swallow, wouldn't it XD

I mean it is only common sense. The sooner they can devote their full attention to 10.0, the sooner it will be ready. And then they can finally get that sweet sweet revenue boost they like so much.

[draugril]

That would be a hard pill to swallow, wouldn't it XD

I mean it is only common sense. The sooner they can devote their full attention to 10.0, the sooner it will be ready. And then they can finally get that sweet sweet revenue boost they like so much.

I mean, I vaguely recall Ion saying that he'd love to have an annual expansion cycle, but certain realities of development get in the way. Maybe if they'd start structuring their content in a way that doesn't make all but the most current content irrelevant, they could be a bit more timely with their releases. It seems that they spend most of their expansion budget reinventing a wheel in square form followed by the patch cycle slowly sanding down the points, and repeat.

[Lady Atia]

Well for one, when Covid first came around it was thought to be serious, but no so muc os that it couldnt be gone in a couple weeks to a month. Even a conservative estimate back then would have said the pandemic would have been effectively over before summer. When hte pandemic was shown to be more serious than initially thought Blizzard would have lost time to reshuffling employees to WFH, which for a company like Blizzard with so much custom hardware and software must have been particularly difficult. Then they would have had to figure out whether WFH impeded them in a massive way.

There wasnt any one specific final act of god that might have forced Blizzard to decide 9.3 wasnt happening. If there was it would have been the California Forest Fire crisis.

Beyond that though, the idea that Blizzard would actually completely excise a patch is still unlikely. There are a myriad things thye could remove from a 9.3 patch to make developing it faster. They could cut down on unique assets, they could scale back or remove completely a new zone, they could make the entire patch just QoL changes and a raid.
There is no conclusive event drastic or sudden enough that Blizzard should have felt the need to completely excise an entire patch, and even if they did I imagine they would be upfront about it, simply because delaying the fallout would just make the issue worse. (Though I guess this point might be countered with the Quarterly income mentality that plagues companies.)


Covid was not a singular drastic event like it looks in hidssight. It was countless small issues that made what was initialy imagined to be a particularly deadly flu season into a society altering event htat lasted over a year.

I am sure that looking back Blizzard would have cut SL short if they could, but that is just with the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of events that the Blizzard of early 2020 couldnt possibly foresee.

Honestly I would rather cut one patch than have to relive the "Dragonsoul patch-Style but minus the dungeons with new environment" again (because lets be honest the first 2 Dungeons were great but the last one and the Raid just felt cheap art and modelwise). End-of-Expansion-drought is bad enough with a good last patch - only making it barebones will not help with that. Of course they could make 9.2 the "small patch" but iirc they already told us that 9.2 will actually be bigger than 9.1?

[Sondrelk]

Honestly I would rather cut one patch than have to relive the "Dragonsoul patch-Style but minus the dungeons with new environment" again (because lets be honest the first 2 Dungeons were great but the last one and the Raid just felt cheap art and modelwise). End-of-Expansion-drought is bad enough with a good last patch - only making it barebones will not help with that. Of course they could make 9.2 the "small patch" but iirc they already told us that 9.2 will actually be bigger than 9.1?

That's the thing though. They might have already spent a significant amount of time on a patch already. AAnd unless that patch can be reused then there is nothing to be gained from scrapping it, only lost time.

If they have nothing done for the potential patch being scrapped except stuff that can eb easily transplanted like gear models and mounts and such then they are better off just completing whatever they already have and ignore much of the rest. Yes it will be a shitty patch, but it will be something and they don't necessarily lose any time.

[Nyel]

Beyond that though, the idea that Blizzard would actually completely excise a patch is still unlikely. There are a myriad things thye could remove from a 9.3 patch to make developing it faster. They could cut down on unique assets, they could scale back or remove completely a new zone, they could make the entire patch just QoL changes and a raid.

There is no conclusive event drastic or sudden enough that Blizzard should have felt the need to completely excise an entire patch, and even if they did I imagine they would be upfront about it, simply because delaying the fallout would just make the issue worse. (Though I guess this point might be countered with the Quarterly income mentality that plagues companies.)

Why unlikely? They did it once (and no, not because they were planning annual expansions) where there was basically no reason to. To do it now would be the most plausible thing and not even problematic.

I'm pretty sure that good project management would have pre-planned a situation with delays and messed up schedules and at least back in May 2020 it was very obvious that the pandemic wasn't going away anytime soon. And back then they could have easily changed the direction of the patch cadence for Shadowlands. At the latest when it became obvious that they could not make the initial release date and everything would get delayed subsequently they should have made backup plans for the rollout of the expansion.

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Honestly I would rather cut one patch than have to relive the "Dragonsoul patch-Style but minus the dungeons with new environment" again (because lets be honest the first 2 Dungeons were great but the last one and the Raid just felt cheap art and modelwise). End-of-Expansion-drought is bad enough with a good last patch - only making it barebones will not help with that. Of course they could make 9.2 the "small patch" but iirc they already told us that 9.2 will actually be bigger than 9.1?

Afaik they didn't tell us that 9.2 will be bigger than 9.1, Ion just said it will be "pretty epic" story-wise.

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That's the thing though. They might have already spent a significant amount of time on a patch already. AAnd unless that patch can be reused then there is nothing to be gained from scrapping it, only lost time.

Why would they have been already working on 9.3 when 9.1 hasn't been out yet and is delayed. 9.2? Granted. But 9.3? They most likely wouldn't have touched it yet besides maybe some concepts on where to go and what to do, with or without the pandemic. I really don't think they have four teams working on 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 and 10.0 simultaneously.

[Pheraz]

In Bfa we were pretty sure what would come since so many plots were opened. Sylvanas and Nathanos, Talanji and Bwonsamdi, Darkshore after teldrassil, kul tiran fat lady intriguing, Azshara and Nzoth from warbringer,... Holy hell there was sooo much going on there.
And now? Sylvanas, anduin, tyrande and baldie, all in one patch. What should happen in 9.3 ? I can hardly imagine some 9.2 with the jailor Vs elune or something

[Sondrelk]

Why unlikely? They did it once (and no, not because they were planning annual expansions) where there was basically no reason to. To do it now would be the most plausible thing and not even problematic.

I'm pretty sure that good project management would have pre-planned a situation with delays and messed up schedules and at least back in May 2020 it was very obvious that the pandemic wasn't going away anytime soon. And back then they could have easily changed the direction of the patch cadence for Shadowlands. At the latest when it became obvious that they could not make the initial release date and everything would get delayed subsequently they should have made backup plans for the rollout of the expansion.

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Afaik they didn't tell us that 9.2 will be bigger than 9.1, Ion just said it will be "pretty epic" story-wise.

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Why would they have been already working on 9.3 when 9.1 hasn't been out yet and is delayed. 9.2? Granted. But 9.3? They most likely wouldn't have touched it yet besides maybe some concepts on where to go and what to do, with or without the pandemic. I really don't think they have four teams working on 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 and 10.0 simultaneously.

You don't know how much Blizzard may or may not have done on any potential patches though. Not to mention that if they would excise a patch then 9.2 is the far more likely candidate as that one is usually more of a filler patch.

Yes, they likely have not done much, but they could have done something. For all we know the second 9.1 zones and quesstlines were done the work behan intently on 9.2, creating content that would be a waste to get rid of. They also might have just gone straight ot 9.3 and I wouldnt think it impossible, but that would require Blizzard directly lying by omission on the patch cycle of Shadowlands for extremely shaky reasons, knowing there would be a massive fallout.

And again, Blizzard might have quite simply decided that they would go through with 9.2 and 9.3 past the point of no return. There is nothing stopping their plan being a smaller 9.2 or 9.3 patch. The content we expect from a patch is so varied that even excising chunks might not make it immediately noticeable. Take for instance the heritage armors. They started in 8.1, and it would have made sense to continue that pattern in Shadowlands with 9.1, but instead we got nothing of that sort, which might have been a deliberate choice.


In short, while the expansion could go to 9.2 and be done, it could also go to 9.3 with less content. There is no proof in any direction except players considering 9.1 to have ended on a cliffhanger that seems to make further patches difficult, this despite there stil being quests not available to see. Things could change.

[Revamp Man]

I heard that they cut a lot of content from Korthia from initial pre-PTR concepting to now. He said if you look at the early parts of the Korthia mapa, it had a lot more structures and things seemingly put in and was stripped bare and now is just a barebones daily quest hub.

Source????

[Makabreska]

Source????

"Trust me bro".

[Revamp Man]

"Trust me bro".

There’s a lot of that recently

Just like with the 9.3 discussion
I’m ready to see what storylines are going to be burned through in 9.2

[Nyel]

You don't know how much Blizzard may or may not have done on any potential patches though. Not to mention that if they would excise a patch then 9.2 is the far more likely candidate as that one is usually more of a filler patch.

Yes, they likely have not done much, but they could have done something. For all we know the second 9.1 zones and quesstlines were done the work behan intently on 9.2, creating content that would be a waste to get rid of. They also might have just gone straight ot 9.3 and I wouldnt think it impossible, but that would require Blizzard directly lying by omission on the patch cycle of Shadowlands for extremely shaky reasons, knowing there would be a massive fallout.

And again, Blizzard might have quite simply decided that they would go through with 9.2 and 9.3 past the point of no return. There is nothing stopping their plan being a smaller 9.2 or 9.3 patch. The content we expect from a patch is so varied that even excising chunks might not make it immediately noticeable. Take for instance the heritage armors. They started in 8.1, and it would have made sense to continue that pattern in Shadowlands with 9.1, but instead we got nothing of that sort, which might have been a deliberate choice.


In short, while the expansion could go to 9.2 and be done, it could also go to 9.3 with less content. There is no proof in any direction except players considering 9.1 to have ended on a cliffhanger that seems to make further patches difficult, this despite there stil being quests not available to see. Things could change.

Then they cut 9.2 and made 9.3 the "new" 9.2. They would have known way beforehand, so it really doesn't matter.

And lying??? There is no general rule for patches or patch cadence. They can do whatever they want and they don't have to tell us. The only thing they have to tell us is if 9.2 is indeed the final patch like they did back with 6.2 in WoD.

And fallout? Again, we're back on schedule if we get the next expansion in Q4/22. Everything lines up perfectly with 9.2 being the last patch coming in December / January. There won't be any fallout. The fallout we have is the long wait for 9.1, everything after that is as expected and back to normal.

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There’s a lot of that recently

Just like with the 9.3 discussion
I’m ready to see what storylines are going to be burned through in 9.2

I mean you're saying the next expansion is releasing in late 2023, so who lives in a glass house...

[Wangming]

I mean, I vaguely recall Ion saying that he'd love to have an annual expansion cycle, but certain realities of development get in the way. Maybe if they'd start structuring their content in a way that doesn't make all but the most current content irrelevant, they could be a bit more timely with their releases. It seems that they spend most of their expansion budget reinventing a wheel in square form followed by the patch cycle slowly sanding down the points, and repeat.

That's a very nice way to put it actually. I like it. They always introduce a new core system that will not carry over to the next expansion and when it turns out that after half a year of beta testing that core system still sucks balls, they spend the entire patch cycle trying to make it work.

[Sondrelk]

Then they cut 9.2 and made 9.3 the "new" 9.2. They would have known way beforehand, so it really doesn't matter.

And lying??? There is no general rule for patches or patch cadence. They can do whatever they want and they don't have to tell us. The only thing they have to tell us is if 9.2 is indeed the final patch like they did back with 6.2 in WoD.

And fallout? Again, we're back on schedule if we get the next expansion in Q4/22. Everything lines up perfectly with 9.2 being the last patch coming in December / January. There won't be any fallout. The fallout we have is the long wait for 9.1, everything after that is as expected and back to normal.

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I mean you're saying the next expansion is releasing in late 2023, so who lives in a glass house...

Just transplanting the Jailers downfall into whatever 9.2 is or was supposed to be wouldnt necessarily work though, just like how the downfall of Garrosh would nt worrk nearly as smoothly if he had to share space with the Thunder King.
9.2 could be more "generic" death stuff, or it could be something very specific like Drust. Simply placing The Jailer into that plotline because you want to skip ahead might not mesh terribly well...

Again though, what I think would be more likely in that case is that whatever 9.2 patch we get is cut slightly short, maybe no unique mounts or stuff like that, and in its place the developers are moved to 9.3 to make that one better. Or even making 9.2 really meaty and 9.3 another Dragon Soul patch that is mostly anemic.

Just because the expansion seems to be heading towards less content doesnt automatically mean that the best choice would be to cut an entire patch. It might have been if there was a very clear and definite reason for Blizzard to do so that was known and telegraphed long in advance. But as much as Covid might seem that in hindsight it really wasnt.

[Nyel]

Just because the expansion seems to be heading towards less content doesnt automatically mean that the best choice would be to cut an entire patch. It might have been if there was a very clear and definite reason for Blizzard to do so that was known and telegraphed long in advance. But as much as Covid might seem that in hindsight it really wasnt.

I really don't know if you're serious about this. It absolutely was. Shadowlands is the only expansion after TBC (13 years later) that has been delayed. Only by a month, but still. So COVID totally was and is a reason to do something like this.

Just transplanting the Jailers downfall into whatever 9.2 is or was supposed to be wouldnt necessarily work though, just like how the downfall of Garrosh would nt worrk nearly as smoothly if he had to share space with the Thunder King.
9.2 could be more "generic" death stuff, or it could be something very specific like Drust. Simply placing The Jailer into that plotline because you want to skip ahead might not mesh terribly well...

In Shadowlands it would work easily because 9.1 is the perfect interlude for a 9.2 where we defeat the Jailer. This wouldn't have worked in BfA where 8.1 gave us a faction war raid and it wouldn't have worked in Legion (although it could have worked if Gul'dan opened the portal that Illidan opened after ToS). In Shadowlands we're in the unique situation that most plot points of the expansion storyline are getting wrapped up - this wasn't the case in BfA at all (and in no previous expansion). So with the conclusion to the covenants, with Sylvanas already being the endboss of this tier, it would be the logical step that the Jailer is next as there is nobody above Sylvanas and below the Jailer. In a perfect world they could have given us a tier where Anduin is the final boss, but is that necessary now? Absolutely not.

All I'm saying is that 9.2 can finish the expansion's storyline easily (and not even in a bad way) if done right. The omission of an in-between-patch wouldn't hurt anyone really.

[draugril]

That's a very nice way to put it actually. I like it. They always introduce a new core system that will not carry over to the next expansion and when it turns out that after half a year of beta testing that core system still sucks balls, they spend the entire patch cycle trying to make it work.

Indeed.

I don't think many players dislike alternative advancement systems, inherently. They dislike their place in the metastructure of the game's cycle. There's a reason we retitled the concept as "borrowed power." Because that is precisely what it is. If they gave us something more generic that we could progress over the years, that could be iterated upon and improved, that wouldn't have to be redone every two years... Artifacts/Azerite/Covenants would be one of the most lauded features of the game.

Horizontal progression is something WoW hasn't attempted since AQ40, and that's a shame.

[Revamp Man]

Then they cut 9.2 and made 9.3 the "new" 9.2. They would have known way beforehand, so it really doesn't matter.

And lying??? There is no general rule for patches or patch cadence. They can do whatever they want and they don't have to tell us. The only thing they have to tell us is if 9.2 is indeed the final patch like they did back with 6.2 in WoD.

And fallout? Again, we're back on schedule if we get the next expansion in Q4/22. Everything lines up perfectly with 9.2 being the last patch coming in December / January. There won't be any fallout. The fallout we have is the long wait for 9.1, everything after that is as expected and back to normal.

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I mean you're saying the next expansion is releasing in late 2023, so who lives in a glass house...

I’m saying an expansion is probably going to get delayed like every other video game we have seen

I’m not saying “omg guys listen this is totally 100% true and if you disagree then it’s only because you don’t like me personally because obviously blizzard doesn’t make increased revenue from patch releases and it’s only from expansion releases and obviously 10.0 is the single game that has suffered 0 delay”

I’m guessing 2023 because of patch lengths
You say 2022 because WoD

Also weren’t you part of the “no 8.3” group?

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Indeed.

I don't think many players dislike alternative advancement systems, inherently. They dislike their place in the metastructure of the game's cycle. There's a reason we retitled the concept as "borrowed power." Because that is precisely what it is. If they gave us something more generic that we could progress over the years, that could be iterated upon and improved, that wouldn't have to be redone every two years... Artifacts/Azerite/Covenants would be one of the most lauded features of the game.

Horizontal progression is something WoW hasn't attempted since AQ40, and that's a shame.

I honestly laugh every time the devs say “well if we keep adding it eventually gets out of hand” when asked about talent rows now because they admitted that the current systems feel like hot garbage

[Nyel]

Also weren’t you part of the “no 8.3” group?

So what? It's getting tiring to here this again and again. Yes, I said there is no 8.3 because the whole expansion was a storytelling mess. I was wrong, I acknowledge it. So what?

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I’m guessing 2023 because of patch lengths
You say 2022 because WoD

I don't say 2022 because of WoD. I say 2022 because

a) it lines up perfectly with ending Shadowlands on 9.2,
b) it being the financially better solution,
c) 9.1 being more like a .2 patch and wrapping up lose ends while acting as an interlude to the finale and
d) WoD as a precedent especially during an (ongoing) pandemic that delayed everything.

By the way, when you say you're guessing 2023 because of patch lenghts you even (partially) agree on a).

[Makabreska]

So what? It's getting tiring to here this again and again. Yes, I said there is no 8.3 because the whole expansion was a storytelling mess. I was wrong, I acknowledge it. So what?

Because you repeat exact same shit again. You spew out guesses and present them as facts that are "obvious to see". Again. And then you can't get it why others make fun of you.

[Sondrelk]

Indeed.

I don't think many players dislike alternative advancement systems, inherently. They dislike their place in the metastructure of the game's cycle. There's a reason we retitled the concept as "borrowed power." Because that is precisely what it is. If they gave us something more generic that we could progress over the years, that could be iterated upon and improved, that wouldn't have to be redone every two years... Artifacts/Azerite/Covenants would be one of the most lauded features of the game.

Horizontal progression is something WoW hasn't attempted since AQ40, and that's a shame.

I guess you might be onto something. External power systems don't stay the same for long periods of time before we get a completely new iteration. Artifact weapons were too static, but instead of changing that aspect we got Azerite power that felt only tangentially similar. Not to mention layered systems within an expansion, like the almost complete disconnect between Azerite Armor and Azerite Essences, or even how th netherlight crucible in Legion felt more like an addon instead of a natural growth of Artifact conduits.
This is definitely not a problem that Tier sets didnt have, where even though they were the quintessential borrowed power, giving cool powers in the moment but screwing up the natural gear progression more often than not, they were still the same over time, meaning problems were smoothed out instead of removed.

Still though, I think borrowed power needs to be in the game in some way. Trinkets already work like borrowed powers in a sense, but I feel an expansion needs some kind of identity in gearing that makes gear not so much rote numbers on the screen, and instead tangible increases in power.

Personally though I recently came to the conclusion that I wonder if Blizzard paradoxically makes worse systems the more effort they put into them. Soulbinds for instance I wonder if would be even better if the class specific abilities were gone for instance. Though that could be an erroneous conclusion. It certainly does clash with my other theory that it would be better to have another talent row for level 60 and leave coevnant active abilities as overworld fluff abilities in lieu of balancing.

[Wangming]

Indeed.

I don't think many players dislike alternative advancement systems, inherently. They dislike their place in the metastructure of the game's cycle. There's a reason we retitled the concept as "borrowed power." Because that is precisely what it is. If they gave us something more generic that we could progress over the years, that could be iterated upon and improved, that wouldn't have to be redone every two years... Artifacts/Azerite/Covenants would be one of the most lauded features of the game.

Horizontal progression is something WoW hasn't attempted since AQ40, and that's a shame.

Absolutely I agree. Over on Taliesin's FFXIV stream he had a disagreement with the commenters on this. To him Relic weapons are just as much borrowed power as say Artifact Weapons or the Heart of Azeroth. Well I don't see my relics loosing power once I step into an expansion zone.

As you said less is more. Maybe if they didn't want to creat the next big feature and just put all their efforts into zones, dungeons, class balance and a proper story, we would have very different discussions now.